The best games of the opening round of the College Football Playoff are expected to be the first two, the ones featuring power conference teams. No. 8 Oklahoma-No. 9 Alabama kicks it off Friday night, followed by No. 10 Miami at No. 7 Texas A&M at noon Saturday.
They should be competitive, tense and potentially thrilling. They are, however, not the most significant matchups of the four.
No, the games that everyone will have an eye on include two Cinderellas, Tulane of the AAC and James Madison of the Sun Belt. Two massive underdogs who aren’t just playing for themselves. They are playing for the have-nots, the smaller schools that finally were given a seat at the table last year once the playoff expanded to 12. Now, not even two years in, there is already talk that the 12 bids to this tournament should be given to the 12 best teams, that it’s time to do away with giving automatic bids to the five highest-ranked conference champions.
The day the pairings were announced, former Alabama coach Nick Saban went on ESPN and already suggested the current format has that problem. Thursday, he reiterated it on “The Pat McAfee Show.”
